


Umbrae Liberae

by threewalls



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Bisexual Character, Blackmail, Cutting, Dysfunctional Relationships, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gender Issues, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Homophobia, Identity Issues, Invisibility, Multi, Nightmares, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Polyjuice Potion, Secret Relationship, Self-Hatred, Teenagers, Threesome - F/M/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2001-12-26
Updated: 2003-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine if Lucius Malfoy could convince Voldemort to be less showy. If after the events of 'Goblet of Fire', nothing happened. No Death Eater attacks with clouds of skulls, just subtle, random accidents that somehow whittle away at those that would oppose Voldemort.</p><p>Imagine if Fudge could continue telling the world that Voldemort's return was merely Dumbledore's senile ravings-- and be believed by the majority of the wizarding world.</p><p>Imagine if Harry Potter is no longer the wizarding world's darling saviour, but something frightening-- after all, who wants someone powerful enough to rival Voldemort, if there is no Voldemort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His eyes are silver, and for a moment, it replaces green as her favourite colour.

"Monday's child is fair of face..."

\---

The note reads, "Roof near North Tower. 11:30. Tonight."

"Third Transfiguration classroom. 10:00. Tonight," had been the first, unexpected order. Each time, they arrive folded once and tied around the foot of some random school owl. Green ink, unremarkable handwriting and, obviously, he never signs his name.

Crumpling the parchment, she throws it into the fire after repeating its instructions twice more to herself. She has never kept them. It is her first secret that is hers alone. Yet, she also remembers glorying in the small glint of anxiety in his eyes, when he demanded that she burn everything.

She keeps the comments and diagrams he scribbles as working, nonetheless. There the ink is uniformly black, the wording informative but personalised, vestiges of explanation that had been verbal and ephemeral. He lets her, she thinks, because he has no other choice.

They had started meeting a year ago, for a very specific reason and a very specific period. She honestly hadn't expected more notes and it's something like fear and something like excitement twinning in her gut.

"Took him long enough."

She turns her head sharply. Colin looks at her curiously over the back of the sofa. He holds a bottle of pumpkin juice in each hand. His camera bag hangs on his shoulder, the fronds of a turkey feather sticking out of the front pocket.

"Not your secret admirer, then?" he asks, smiling. Colin doesn't know the details of her meetings, but as her best friend, possibly her only friend, he knows of them.

It's good to have a friend like Colin, someone to sit with in class, to cram with before exams, and most importantly, who can empathise (she'd learnt last year to what degree) with the mess of feelings a certain pair of green eyes evoke in her. She receives the predictable jibes from her brothers and Colin receives far worse. Not this year, yet, but Ron is an Upper Sixth and a prefect, with more important things on his mind.

"Really, it's--"

Across the room, she can see her brother sitting on another so-identical sofa. Hermione sits next to him with her feet tucked up under the hem of her robes. She's also Ron's girlfriend (after two years of false starts and several drawn out cycles of break-up and reunion) but they don't go for public shows of affection, so it isn't obvious.

Hazy images shoot from the end of Hermione's wand; Ron and Harry compete to see who can dissipate them first. Harry sits on the floor, leaning against Ron's legs. Ginny had turned in time to see Harry dissipate a stylised image of a snake.

After six years, the sight of Harry Potter can still do funny things to the rhythm of her heart.

She and Colin had not been the instant friends the trio across the room are. When they had been Firsts, they'd both missed the tentative overtures of friendship from their peers, focusing on the year above. They'd grown more self-conscious since, but their priorities hadn't changed.

He is Harry Potter, after all.

"I like your eyes better brown," Colin says softly. "Though I'm not exactly sure why you're jealous of your brother and Hermione. Is it bad news from your mystery man?"

"Not bad," she admits, smiling twice too much. She would hate to have to lie to her best friend, and so never corrects him.

"Pity we've still got the History to do, then. You have to wonder about Professor Binn's grip on reality. I mean, four feet essays on turn of the century Warlock conferences? At least it's not goblins, again, right?"

She nods her head in commiseration and shifts along the sofa so that he can sit next to her. She shuffles her History notes in her lap, and thanks him for the bottle of pumpkin juice that she didn't have to ask for.

She and Colin are desk-partners in all subjects. They'd found early on that they complimented each other, academically at the least. His patience and good humour make midnight Astronomy classes bearable and he swears that the difference between a dragon and a wyvern is something he will only ever be able to take her word for. Potions is the one glaring exception. The practical skills photography had given him cannot help the panic Ginny feels when enclosed in their dungeon classrooms.

Apart from her mother's clicking disappointment, her series of conditional passes only became a problem in fifth year. Potions, along with Transfig, History, Charms, and Defense, form the core compulsory O.W.L. subjects you had to pass to allowed to take your N.E.W.Ts.

Colin had suggested she ask Professor Snape for help when her first fifth year Potions assignment had been returned hatched with bright red quill-strokes. At the time she'd thought he was only trying to make her laugh, but when she'd finished crying and he repeated it, it had sounded logical.

So, she did.

*************

"Excuse me, Sir?"

Professor Snape continues to write at his desk. She counts to twenty, and then forty and then one hundred and wonders if five minutes have gone by yet.

"Sir? I know you said on my report that it was sheer luck that I managed to pass Potions last year. But you see, I really like Potions, I mean it's not my favourite subject, but it's definitely my second. I like practical things. I like seeing what I'm doing do something while I'm watching, and I like knowing why. So, since I'd like to pass and since it doesn't look like I will, I thought maybe you could suggest a book from the library that maybe I could read so that I can maybe do better."

Ginny pauses for breath, looking down from the point on the ceiling she had directed her monologue to. Suddenly, she wishes she hadn't because now she'll never know what point made him look up from his writing.

"If you'd read my comments on your report more carefully, you might have recognised that you require a great deal more help than any single book could provide."

The Professor's eyes are black and blank, and she remembers thinking that they had to be more expressive up close. They aren't.

"There's nothing I can do..."

"That is not what I said. If you are sincere about improving in Potions," he pauses, "it may be possible to arrange a tutor for you. In fact, certain of the Lower Sixth have approached me to offer their services."

"I asked Hermione over the holidays but it... didn't really work out."

Hermione had been generous with her time and knowledge, but her explanations hadn't translated well across their different levels of comprehension. Despite her enthusiasm, Hermione also had very little patience explaining something so 'simple', so many times. And, Harry had usually hovered distractingly near Hermione, oblivious that his friend had company.

"Despite the airs she gives herself, Miss Granger does not hold a monopoly on academic merit." Professor Snape hands her a parchment scrap he'd quickly scribbled on. It is a map in prose, with the faint hints of rhyme that colour Potions instructions. "Follow these directions and ask for Draco Malfoy. He's the Slytherin prefect in the same year as your brother."

"Sir, you want me to ask Draco Malfoy?"

"Do you really believe I have the time to personally chase up a tutor for you, Miss Weasley?"

She shakes her head, mumbling thanks as she backs away. For once, tears are suppressed by the sick feeling inside her.

*************

She doesn't recognise the corridors, remember which paintings she passes or what they tell her. Her instructions from Professor Snape list turnings and stairs and she counts them obsessively.

She almost succeeds in looking inconspicuous. The blackness of her robes blends with the shadows and dark stonework. Her hands hide up sleeves stretched for just such an occasion. Her tie is hidden with her robes shut, broad, bright red and gold stripes marking her as an enemy, a target.

A Gryffindor.

This is a silly, stupid idea, she thinks, and turns to run under the painted eyes of some dead man in armour. A Slytherin to be placed here, all dark stone without tapestries, moving forever downwards. The man in armour doesn't look at her. She's beneath the notice of a painting.

Then, she can hear voices, can see the glint of green and silver on their uniforms. How will she get back to Gryffindor? Why did she come here? What will they do to her?

And, as suddenly, they go audibly quiet. They've seen her, recognised her too red hair and they know she has to be a Gryffindor.

She wants to run but her legs don't move. There are so many...

"Lost, Weasley?"

He looks at her. Direct eye-to-eye contact and it leaves a large hole somewhere inside her. She feels light-headed, and afraid. His eyes are silver, and for a moment, it replaces green as her favourite colour.

"Kneazle got your tongue? I asked you a question, Weasley, and I'm still waiting."

Draco Malfoy stands a few paces back. His eyes traverse the circle of Slytherins, ordering them into position. It takes him away from her and she can no longer pretend they are alone.

He is not so much surrounded by his peers, as flanked. Two mountains stand behind him to either side. Some girl, blonde and curly, is the next closest. The rest surround, and Ginny thinks: if this had been one of the corridors she knows, she'd be invisible.

"To whom do we owe the pleasure of your company? Potter, Weasel or the Mudblood?"

"Professor Snape sent me." Her voice is high and squeaky. She knows that she is probably blushing.

"Incorrect, I'm afraid." He doesn't sound afraid, not the way she does. He takes a step forward; she should run but one step back is all she manages. She doesn't think they'll let her go, anyway.

"Snape is the head of our house and more than capable of passing along his own messages."

She knows she's crying now, too, can feel the hot wetness running down the sides of her face. Sometimes, she wonders if this is the only thing she knows how to do well.

"He said to ask for help in Potions. To ask you, because you're the best."

And then his eyes are back and nothing else matters but basking in the attention. There might be curiosity behind all the hateful emotions that she can see in his eyes, but it's only another shade of grey.

"Perfection comes at a price. Do you really think you can afford me, Weasley?" He pauses, then rolls his eyes for the crowd. They laugh.

"Go back to Gryffindor where you belong, with your Mudbloods and half-breeds." The crowd parts leisurely at this decree and she stumbles backwards and away.

Ginny runs down empty corridors, turning and climbing at whim until something registers. A tapestry of unicorns and fountains with a grey ghost floating through it. Ravenclaw's Grey Lady. Ravenclaw. The West tower.

She rests, holding one hand against the rapid tremors in her chest, the other between her face and hair. For a wistful moment, she wishes that Malfoy would help her, thirsty for such attention. The moment stretches as her breathing slows and she drifts into imagining.

Suddenly, she hears a scream, no, a screech, which has no part in her dream. A school owl has landed by her feet. She unties the note tied to its foot, even though there is no name addressed. At first, the parchment is blank, and then green ink begins to spontaneously write.

"Th... third... Trans... figuration?"

*************

Ginny navigates by incense, flying towards the denser scent.

She hovers with her eyes closed a moment, feeling the breeze. It plays with her hair and her clothes, cloak and robes thrown hurriedly over a nightgown. A charm on her pillow shook her awake half an hour ago.

Somewhere below, there is a tower window with the latch left open so that she can return to her dormitory. From his point of view, the roof is difficult to reach and isolated, more important considerations than her convenience. While it would not surprise her if he did know where she slept, she also knows not read so much into it.

They weren't and never will be friends. Yet for all there is fundamentally between them, there are times when she forgets. Once, she had a question that took him five weeks to answer and he had been all smugness; she had known that he hadn't asked Professor Snape. She had found herself feeling happy for him.

She is a Weasley, he a Malfoy. Gryffindor, Slytherin. The very ends of the spectrum. Fire and ice, but that is the sort of 'poetic drivel' she keeps to herself. You couldn't trust what he said or did, you couldn't trust him about anything but schoolwork. The pleasure she gets from seeing Draco is the same as the thrill of getting a highly marked essay back.

It has to be. Draco does not share her memory's convenient faults, even when he is pleased with himself and his teaching methods. The easiest way to wipe a grin off Draco's face, she had learnt, is to return it.

*************

"Sit," he gestures to a desk in the front row, placing a candle and small hourglass on it.

So, she sits, moving in from the doorway and shoving the sleeves of her robes up to her elbows. She places her Potions notebook and battered, fourth-hand copy of 'Magical Drafts and Potions' on top of each other next to the candle. The former has a neatly printed list of questions that have arisen since she saw him last folded just inside the cover.

"Malfoy, it's a candle."

"It's an exercise," he corrects, making eye contact. "You need more practical help."

True enough, though she doesn't remember mentioning it. Ginny worries because she doesn't have any of her Potions equipment with her.

"What do I do?"

"Incendio," he lights the candle with a sharp flick of a wanded hand. "Observe."

Ginny blinks at that, but he has turned away and she is afraid, all too aware of her dependence on a hereditary enemy.

"You have forty-five minutes to write down every facet of this candle's existence as observed by you. Until the sand runs out."

How can describing a candle help her pass Potions? If their O.W.L exam is anything like this, Professor Snape is wasting their time teaching antidotes and how to maximise the amount of useable bile from a single gall bladder.

"What are you going to do? Just sit there and watch me?"

Draco takes a sheaf of parchment from his bag, followed by a quill, a bottle of ink, and some textbooks with strips of parchment sticking out at random intervals. He arranges his things on the teacher's desk, grimacing at Professor Flitwick's high chair.

"I planned to write a Herbology paper." Draco looks up, cocking his head in heavily effected confusion. "I had thought you could manage to observe a candle without my supervision."

"A paper about what? I could write it for you. I'm quite good at--"

"Weasley, watch the candle, write things down. It's simple. Explaining the point of this exercise would defeat the purpose and I'd remind you the sand is running as we argue."

She smiles. He doesn't, turning back to his books.

*************

It is only when she flies closer that she can separate Draco's head from the moonlight shining over the black, slate tiles. He doesn't wave back as she circles, but there is a tightness in her chest just to see that he is actually there.

She doesn't love Draco. How can anyone be in love with Draco Malfoy? He isn't spectacularly attractive; he isn't fun to be around. She is grateful for his help and his patience with her, but that's different. He insults her and all she holds dear in the hallways. His thugs make her drop her books between classes, yet never to or from Potions.

Everything decent she's seen of Malfoy has related to Potions. Her 76% Potions O.W.L was testament to how useful their sessions had been, but she has never been sure why he helped her at all. What could make Draco Malfoy sully himself with a Gryffindor? Sick curiosity? An order from Professor Snape? Something more sinister?

Rumour insists that every Slytherin will become a Death Eater before the War, if they aren't already. She's afraid to ask him if it's true.

Draco frightens her. It frightens her that she is more afraid of what will happen this year and during the war, because he is on the other side. She is not afraid that he will physically hurt her, but that she will become a tool to hurt others, to accidentally or unknowingly hurt Harry.

She does love Harry, with an admitted half-masochistic desperation. She knows that her devotion embarrasses him, though she has been told too many times that one day Harry will notice, will stop being shy, or whatever reason Ron came up with that day. With the mess of emotions she currently feels, she's glad that she no longer holds her own heart.

Ginny lands poorly, skidding on the tiles. Distance is hard to judge when everything is the same inky black, and it is hard to keep your balance on an angled surface of so many loosely fitted parts. The bitter taste of adrenaline is gone from her mouth and her body is starting to protest being awake.

Draco is leaning back against Trelawney's tower, his broomstick balanced at his feet. She wonders if he's been here long; he looks comfortable. For maybe five minutes, they stand there. The slope of the roof is slight, so she has a few inches on him. His eyes are on her, but there is nothing but intensity in them, no judgement and no meaning.

"Did you ask me up here just to look at me?" Her voice has a touch of hysteria, not quite able to take the silence with good grace. "Professor Snape's on sabbatical. Nobody has Potions, Draco. Why did you send me a note?"

"Why did you come?" His eyes don't change and the words are an automatic and momentary wrinkle of his lips.

"Well, you asked so nicely." She tries to inflect sarcasm on the final word.

She feels for the bag of sweets resting in a pocket of her robes. A distraction. Her fingers untie the bow that now embarrasses her, leaving the ribbon behind as she removes the bag and holds it out for him.

"For all your help," she says. "It's late, I know, but I did pass, quite well, but I thought -- I thought that you'd probably not want to see me."

"Thank you," he says, but she can't tell whether he means for the present or for staying away or if it is just another automatic response. He rattles it a little, then reaches in and removes a round lozenge wrapped in shiny paper.

The bag of mixed sweets is a second-hand present. Of course, she can't tell Draco that he is getting prototypes that may have unexpected side effects, that she couldn't afford proper sweets.

"Three-W. How... catchy." Abruptly, he looks up from unwrapping, catching her watching him. She blushes, to get THAT over with for this meeting. "Will I live to regret eating it?"

"Draco, do you really think I'd give you poisoned sweets?"

He looks at her for a moment, and she feels silly to realise that he had been trying to make a joke and wonders who's more to blame for it falling flat. Draco solves the problem by distraction; he eats the sweet. It's something hard, she guesses. He talks around it, instead of chewing.

"I remember your brothers, Weasley, and how they got their kicks. It tastes like candied carrot, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to do--"

He breaks off and looks her up and down, quizzically for a minute, and she curses not knowing what any of these joke sweets do. Draco holds the bag over.

She takes one without looking. Her choice is green. It tastes of angelica and sugar, chewy but with a hard centre. She bites down and the centre cracks and explodes, violently, with sherbet.

She finds herself stepping backwards, broomstick in one hand, flailing with the other and then sliding backwards suddenly and running out of tiles or roof under tiles and grabbing desperately at nothing in the night and catching it in both hands.

*************

She used to dream about the day Harry would notice her. Evenings, summer afternoons and History lessons spent drifting in the idea, rearranging and reexperiencing its elements. Then, she ran out of variations; worse, she found herself pre-empting actions from mental scripts. She has another fantasy now, just something to play with as she tries to sleep.

They would be talking, walking along a hallway. Perhaps a conversation, or he'd be explaining something or she would relate some story; her choice depends on mood. They turn into the Great Hall, subconsciously accustomed to moving to a meal at that point in the day.

The entire hall silent, everybody looking at them: the youngest Weasley and the Malfoy scion. Draco would stop, briefly stunned, and Ginny would quickly place her arms round his neck.

And kiss him.

In front of everyone.

After that amount of motivation, brazenly shunning the model he had set for their relationship in such an extravagant way, she can never carry the motif further, even in her mind. Perhaps he'd kill her, and it's a very small and very sick part of her that wants to be worth the killing.

*************

"Next time, Draco, if you want to tryst, pick somewhere on solid ground."

Draco thankfully ignores her, gripping his wand in his teeth and a broomstick in each hand. "Wingardium Leviosa," he mutters in litany, "Wingardium Leviosa."

And then, there are tiles and roof beneath her feet again.

"I saved your life, Weasley."

There is something insistent in his tone, but she's never been able to play his word games.

"Thank you?"

She realises that there is a scar outlined under her fingers, where they grip his left forearm.

"You're a De... a Death..."

"I'm a Malfoy," he says, and his eyes are the same, fluid grey that they have always been. "I saved your life, and I think it's worth somewhat more than a quick 'thank you'. Don't you?"


	2. Iustitia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I recited the Prefect Oath, I added a line in my head, a promise to myself. Of course, I had expected the frequency of barbs to numb my response, which it hadn't, but thus far, my promise holds.

Tuesday's child is full of grace...

\---

Dear Mr. R. Weasley,

I am pleased to offer you the position of Prefect for your remaining years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In these uncertain times, the position of Prefect and the responsibilities implicit in the role have never been so important. A complete list of school rules is enclosed.  
Please consider this offer carefully. I await your owl, by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Professor M. McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress

*************

Maybe twenty steps from the landing, the common room comes into view and with it, the edges of Hermione's robes. She stands at the junction of the tower's two spiral staircases, against the wall and outside the flow of traffic.

At step nineteen, I'm pulled to the wall to provide cover. I wonder about his dreams, getting Harry this far usually means sitting next to him at breakfast. He mumbles under his breath, waits, and then releases my sleeve.

I nod, out of habit. Unless you know what to look for, his features are now nondescript and his scar invisible.

"I'm going for a walk," he says, abruptly moving again and faster. Hermione gets a wave that's nothing more than a sharp flattening of his fist before Harry disappears into the crowd spilling out of the common room.

"He was writing last night, wasn't he?" She wraps her arms around me and I can feel all the curves under her robes. It's an almost perfect way of saying 'hello'.

"He said he's going for a walk. Can't think why I keep expecting something to have changed."

"It's our final year, which cancels quite a bit. You have to be patient, not so long ago, he wouldn't have said anything." Her eyes are still on the door, but I understand her distraction. A few minutes can't cancel eight hours of worry. I'm lucky, in a way.

"Not so long ago, I didn't get good morning hugs."

"Overcompensating, do you think?" She pulls back, then rolls her eyes when she catches my smile.

"I don't remember saying that I minded."

*************

Dear Ron,

I'm glad that everything is well with you and your family. Fred and George seem well suited to apprenticeships with Zonko's, though I can understand why your mother is cross. Bulgaria is nice, though I think I've seen enough dragons and Quidditch matches in the last few weeks to last me for years. Have you heard from Harry? I haven't, and I wonder how his aunt and uncle are treating him. Have you heard any ministry gossip that it would be all right to pass along? My Daily Prophet subscription isn't answering any of my questions.  
No, I haven't received a letter from Professor McGonagall. She sends the offers out around the beginning of August, so I wouldn't panic. It'll be different now. Think of how strict you'd have to be, how terrible to take points from Gryffindor -- not to mention how visible prefects are. Of course, there are still a few weeks to think about it. If you do hear from Harry, please pass on my best wishes.

Love,  
Hermione

*************

The time between Fourth and, well, this year, has been blissfully uneventful. It's easy for Herm and I, and much of the wizarding world, to pretend that war isn't coming. Harry doesn't have the option.

Harry has nightmares. He's said it's You-Know... Voldemort, that his scar gives him some sort of a psychic conduit. We hypothesised in Div last year that it's another residual effect, like Parseltongue, so the reverse shouldn't be a problem.

The intelligence is too vital to simply sedate Harry every night, but we do what we can. Herm found a charm for our beds, to keep the sound from waking anyone but Harry and me. That was Christmas in Fifth, I think; it's all routine now. When he was with the Muggles, I'd find myself waking up at all odd hours of the night, wondering if they even knew. Probably not, knowing Harry.

I don't know what goes on in his nightmares. He doesn't talk about them, not with either of us, and he doesn't talk in his sleep. They're just another brick in the walls he's building.

Perhaps that's why I've never had a problem answering him. At three in the morning, when one of your best friends has woken you up, screaming, could you tell him to rack off for asking personal questions? And where's the harm in sneaking into the girls' room under his cloak to check on your other best friend, or holding on to him until at least one of you falls back asleep? That's what friends do, isn't it, because they care.

If the odd time that he's actually willing to talk, he wants to know about love, familial or romantic, why not answer his questions? It's always worse when he's lucid enough to start taking notes and he pushes me away, apologetic for waking me and embarrassed by my concern.

*************

S - You said write about anything. I'm sure you meant nightmares or strange 'coincidences' and their ilk, and I don't want to waste your time, but I'm tying myself in knots. The nightmares started it. I lent on them too much, liked it too much. They're in my dreams as frequently as you or my parents are, and I keep holding on without explaining why. There's a knife twisting in my gut every time they kiss. It's stupid and petty and beneath me, but it's not exactly jealousy. I'm jealous of both and I want -- I don't know what I want, it changes, and I know I shouldn't, even though I can't stop myself thinking -- I think they've realised that I've been avoiding them. I don't trust myself not to betray the bitterness, or anything worse. I'm sure I've thought about this far too much but I've realised that, maybe, I'm in love, and that's the last sort of revelation I need right now. Advice? H.

*************

"I do understand, Headmistress. I might not have required your lengthy period of deliberation, but if I'd wanted to distance myself from your former office, I'm certain similar appointments would have occurred to me."

"Professor Snape once told me that you were his most promising student."

"That certainly demonstrates his outstanding fidelity. He once told me you were a frigid, anal cow."

"Mr. Malfoy, I remind you that I no longer need to refer this matter to Professor Sinistra, should I decide to discipline you."

"My apologies, Headmistress, if my frankness disturbs you."

If I were listening less carefully, I'd probably think it was a cordial, casual conversation. It's a game to Malfoy, and he sickens me. I'm not that sort of political animal, weaned on treachery from birth. Hunger pangs tell me that dinner began half an hour ago. It's more than distracting.

"Are you still with Seamus?" I whisper.

Parvati nearly jumps at the sound. She shakes her head, and then continues fidgeting with her badge. Parvati is tiny, so much more so than she was in Fourth. We see a lot of each other in our duties and Div, but three hours at a stretch is a bit much of anyone.

Like any class this year, Div's a joke, five students only and it's a sense of duty that keeps the numbers that high. Today, I presented my holiday project, a paper on Ailuromancy worth roughly ten percent of my final Div N.E.W.T. The remaining half of the lesson, we listened to the walls of North Tower. Trelawney had been convinced that the spirit of Hogwarts had tried to speak to her the night before.

I got to see her discharge papers from St. Mungo's (which are, incidentally, dated the year Dumbledore became headmaster) right before my O.W.L.s. McGonagall had wanted to warn me about abusing my gift. I remember it with fondness as one of the very few times she's treated me seriously.

"Silandra Nott's travel papers haven't yet arrived, I trust."

"Ah." I hear papers shuffling. "I'm afraid there's a letter from the Spanish Ministry for her."

"Christmas in Barcelona," he pauses, "it doesn't even snow."

When I was a Fifth, everyone mixed, even Slytherins to some degree. Now the lines are drawn, much more complexly than simply by the colour of one's tie. Malfoy is only in with McGonagall because a Lower Sixth Ravenclaw curious about shorthand didn't conveniently stall him after the meeting. That said, Malfoy also left the door open, discussed nothing important and probably hopes to use up the hour for spite.

Parvati has a sister in Ravenclaw; it was her sister I danced with in fourth year. I wonder if she's seen her since the holidays.

*************

Remus Lupin stands on the other side of our front door, his hands are raised and empty. Only Harry and Mum have a clear line of sight, but we all have our wands out.

"Accio," Harry breaks the silence. A stick of wood no one else had noticed lying on the welcome mat flies into his hand. "He didn't come with you."

"No. Sirius sends his love."

"How," Mum's voice, but not her wand hand, wavers slightly, "did you get through?"

"I've spent the last few--"

"Four?" Harry interjects.

"I believe it is Tuesday, so, yes, four days under iron and numerous binding spells, being interrogated round the clock by some of the delightfully enthusiastic new crop of Aurors. Arabella apparated in last night, taking over one last bout of questions and decided that I was, indeed, myself. Or," he sighs, "if you were referring to the aconite within your hedgerow, I feel like I've swallowed razor blades. Thank you for asking."

"I vouch for him, Mrs. Weasley," Harry says. "He is who he appears to be."

Lupin looks very tired, though maybe five years older than I'd expected and completely grey. After what happened with Percy, we all know you can't be too careful. Even so, Mum's maternal autocracy eventually crumbles against Harry's self-possession.

"How long do you need to stay?"

"Longer than a month, if you'll have me. I understand you have a cellar."

"It'll be a bit of a mess, no one's used it since -- still, the door's got iron bars and we don't really need the good silverware."

"Iron would be sufficient." Lupin smiles, tightly.

*************

"Weasley, may I ask why you were standing behind the door? It can't have been very comfortable."

"Stow it, Malfoy." There is a flush of tingly warmth on my bruises, a healing charm from Parvati's wand.

"Another example, perhaps. How is your sister? You do have a sister, don't you?"

"She's fine. And your... mother, she is well?"

I wonder if this is how Hagrid feels when pixies blow raspberries at him. I've got more than a foot on Malfoy, his comments lack inflection and he has all the facial expression of a corpse. What can I say; my fists still itch. Parvati has a hand on my arm, because I am that transparent.

"She is." Malfoy inclines his head slightly to the side. "It seems that I already owe our headmistress a galleon; Gryffindors can be civil."

When I recited the Prefect Oath, I added a line in my head, a promise to myself. Of course, I had expected the frequency of barbs to numb my response, which it hadn't, but thus far, my promise holds.

"Will we be late for dinner, Draco?"

"Fashionably, my dear. Weasley. Patil."

There's something so wrong about them, besides the obvious. Malfoy and Parkinson could be fraternal twins or cousins, all platinum tresses and noses high. Then again, they're Slytherins, they probably are.

Fifteen minutes tops, I think as Parvati and I take our usual chairs. I'm so hungry.

"Ron. Parvati. Have a seat." Is familiarity supposed to temper the feeling of betrayal? "I know you'd hoped to be Head--"

"I understand, that's not why I'm here. Last year, we talked about some Quidditch friendlies."

She looks up from the parchments spread over her desk. I can't remember Dumbledore ever having so much roosting correspondence either, but his office was larger.

"While resuming some sort of Quidditch programme would increase morale, it isn't currently feasible. Madame Hooch does not have the leisure for Quidditch alongside her new responsibilities for Gryffindor."

"We could organise everything," I add, quickly. Parvati nods.

"Time isn't the main problem, Ron. We haven't the wizard-power to extend the castle's wards that far. We can't even allow flying lessons for first-years, it's simply not safe. I never thought I'd see a generation of British magical children not learn to fly." She re-dips her quill.

Sometimes, I wonder why I was chosen to be a prefect. I mean, when the Dark Lord wants to challenge us to chess, I'm your wizard, but this? McGonagall has a much better rapport with Hermione, who would have put enough pieces together to prevent this awkward silence. Harry wouldn't have cared.

"I can see you're busy."

I stand. Parvati follows suit. I can't tell whether McGonagall notices us leaving.

*************

"A few days ago, there was a letter, more of a note. I was in my room for my Div assignment. A completely ordinary brown owl flew in and perched on top of Hedwig's cage. I should have guessed but I think I wanted the distraction, especially after watching your cat sleep for three hours. It was addressed to Sirius, from Harry."

"It must have bounced mid-flight. Ron, if it's sensitive, you shouldn't be telling me."

"It is, but not the way you mean. The note was so bitter, all about this thinly disguised hatred for... it was ambiguous, just some couple, and that he was in love, but alone. Then Harry burst in, demanding it back. I wanted to know... We argued. I was holding it up, so he couldn't reach. He just got angrier and angrier and then he, he tackled me onto my bed and got it back, incinerated it right in his hand. Then he stomped out."

"I can see why he isn't talking to us. Did he explain anything? He was so obvious about Cho, I can't think -- he barely tolerates anyone but Sirius and us."

"It is us."

"Of course, he loves us. Ron, we're his best friends. You mean he's afraid he's lost our friendship, because we're together? I thought you meant romantic love."

"I did. You see, when we were arguing, when he tackled me, he sort of -- kissed me."

"Oh."

Hermione sits up, resolutely watching the horizon.

It's a nice day. The sky's one clear, consistent blue. I'm sitting on the front steps with my girlfriend, as alone as you get at home. She'd been practically in my lap, right up until a few moments ago.

The Dursleys would be in the room Mum gave them, sulking in spelled whispers, though Harry's cousin might be helping in the kitchen. They had to be here and Mum believes in setting courteous examples, however ill received. Our other guest is probably still sleeping. No one's seen him about since he showed up yesterday.

Colin and Ginny are in the garden. It's his first visit and he's snapping successively more embarrassed shots of my baby sister showing him around. Yes, it is a coincidence I can see them from here.

I don't know where Harry is. He's practically lived in his cloak since our fight.

"Was it nice?" Hermione says, finally finding some words. "When he kissed you, did you like it?"

"I don't know."

I'd been using "unexpected" when I had to think about it. I'd never thought about Harry like that, before. There had been emotions I didn't want to classify, and confidence, he'd kissed me to prove something.

"I understand. I really do." She wraps her arms around her knees, moving further away. "Statistically, you know, one in ten people prefer their own sex and some estimates indicate that most people are ambivalent, as it were. I think I even saw it coming." Her laugh is a bitter, skittish thing. "Between our fights and Harry's nightmares, it stands to reason."

"Herm, you don't--"

"If you don't let me finish this, Ron, I will hit you for six. Happiness is so rare in the world we're living in, and I love you," she's blinking back tears, "I couldn't -- you have my blessing, both of you."

"I'm not breaking up with you. Hermione, I love you."

"Please, Ron! This isn't Parvati after your prefect induction and too much butterbeer. It's Harry!"

"Who said, when I asked whom he loved: not just Hermione!"

"And was that before or after he kissed you?"

"Before. I was just about to hit him for hinting that he fancied you, hence..." Again, she is silent and she closes her eyes. I'd expected her reaction to be mine, to rage for me to stay, not leave. Hit things now, cry later in private. I cautiously reach a hand to rest on her shoulder. "I don't know what to do. I can't just forget about it."

"He told you not to tell me, didn't he?" Hermione sighs, but doesn't shrug off my hand. "It would explain a lot, if he -- I want time to think about it."

*************

Parvati says nothing as we walk, which I appreciate. We enter down the grand staircase, but most students are more interested in dessert. Every table in the hall has scatterings of empty seats, but high table looks decimated, only the Heads of House and Vector. I can hardly remember when we had the entire faculty at meals.

Hermione and Lavender sit one away from each side of Harry at the high end of Gryffindor. Lavender makes discreet, hopeful motions in our general direction, but Parvati stares at the back of Harry's head.

"Um, Harry? Parvati and I--"

He turns, a translucent smile becoming thin when it alights on my fellow prefect, surreptitiously inching behind me.

"Have prefect things to discuss?" he finishes, pushing back his chair as he stands. "Please," he gestures, before sitting next to Hermione.

Parvati gratefully slides into the chair on my other side, briefly linking hands with Lavender under the table.

A few chairs further down, Ginny pushes her dinner around her plate, staring at nothing. Ever conscientious, Colin is leaning too close and moving her braids when they look like they fancy a dip in her gravy. Catching my glance, he leans back quickly.

"We wondered what happened," Hermione says, after I finish whispering enough trivial things to Parvati to make good my excuse. "Most of the prefects got to dinner on time. Then, Malfoy and Parkinson maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago."

"I needed to talk to McGonagall."

"What about?" Harry asks.

"What Malfoy said to her first, apart from the usual threats. He wanted to be Head Boy."

"Binns inducted them and new Fifths before dinner." Hermione, thankfully, isn't looking at me. "He got complete silence, shock, mostly, I think everyone had given up on there being Heads at all this year. Justin's impartial, which I suppose is all one can ask for, and we all knew Brockle-- Zabini would get it."

"If I'd married a Slytherin," Harry asks, without smiling, "do you suppose they might've let me be Head Girl?"

*************

"Gin, you can't honestly expect me to believe this is your idea."

"Why, Ron, because she's a witch?" Hermione hisses.

We're crowded on the stairs outside my room, all whispering. The master bedroom's downstairs a number of flights, but Lupin's just on the next landing.

"Because I know how teenage wizards think. Her boyfriend--

"Best friend. We're best friends just like Harry and Hermione and they're not, you know." Ginny looks down before continuing plaintively: "It seemed like a good idea. Naïve of me to think you'd like your girlfriend in your room."

"And with a captive audience, too." Harry alone isn't blushing. "Switch, don't switch -- I'm going back to bed."

We argue unproductively until Colin asks, "would you take my word, on my honour as a wizard and a Gryffindor, to treat Ginny as though she were my sister?"

She's not your sister, I think, but I shake his outstretched hand and then wince as they apparate together. Harry's not my brother; it's time to stop pretending.

"Harry?" Hermione whispers, picking her way across my room. "I know you're not asleep."

"I didn't think--" Harry sits up and replaces his glasses. "Ron's mother will have a fit."

"Colin and I can both apparate." Hermione spreads what had been Colin's blankets to sit on top of them. "Ron told me you didn't sleep last night either."

"I can't trust anyone." Hermione's good, but Harry knows both of us very well. "I didn't want Creevey to know about my nightmares. No sleep, no dreams. That isn't why you're here."

"We're your friends and we l--"

"Quietus!" It sounds like a bullet and numbness spreads through my throat. "It's not a magic word, Ron."

My ears must be glowing in the dark, but I'm smiling like a fool. Harry's talking to me again.

"We know that nightmares aren't your only problem and we'd like to discuss some of the others. Please, Harry."

"Talk all night if you think it'll help. I wasn't going to sleep, anyhow."

"That's all we're asking for. But, um..." Hermione looks at me, pointedly.

"Oh. Sonorus!"

*************

"How's it feel?"

"How does it look, Ron?" A pause. "Don't answer that."

I'm laughing, but she joins me, so it's all right. We kiss again, and I smooth the right shoulder seam.

We're lucky, in a way. You'd have to be a keen-sighted voyeur to spot that I'm helping Hermione into Harry's cloak and not just snogging her in a stairwell. Restrained public displays of affection are usually overlooked, if somewhat borderline for prefects.

We've the cloak with Harry's blessing, the offer made a long while back. He got almost nightly status reports through our whole convoluted courtship. Harry prefers to listen, I never need much prompting, and it saved me from embarrassment (and blackmail) at my brothers' hands. I'd always been uncomfortable testing his generosity, but it's a moot point now.

"Wait for Parvati to finish her rounds."

My gift's a nuisance more often than not, probabilities not certainties. After Parvati's head count, (and my own -- we coordinate) Hermione's unlikely to run into someone. It's the best I can do. Telling her straight would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, she'd want details that would make her overconfident.

"I have done this before, you know. Good night." Hermione glides up her fork of the stairs, a sliver of invisibility under her school cloak.

I'm very lucky.


	3. Prudentia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's never going to be anyone else for us, any of us.

"Wednesday's child is full of woe..."

*************

My uniform floats in a neatly folded pile above the foot of the bed, a simple levitation spell. Prefects should be discreet, but nightmares don't care about propriety. Two or three nights a week is pushing it, even with Harry's cloak. Sometimes, I wish that I were a boy--just for the convenience.

Suddenly, the curtains are flung open. I drop to my knees, clutching my uniform in front of me. "Wondered where you were," Ron mumbles, rolling away from the light.

"Where did you put my father's cloak?"

"It's not where I usually leave it?"

"Look for yourself." He pulls the curtains wider.

"Harry! I would, but--" I wave the item in my left hand. It feels far too lacy to be a sock. Bother.

"They've already gone down," Harry says, leaving the curtains open. He folds his arms across his chest and just-- stands there. "It's late."

Ron groans. He rolls out of bed, literally, landing at Harry's feet. He pushes up from all fours and pads over to his bed, where he'll sniff through yesterday's clothes.

I, in contrast, hurriedly throw on my uniform half under the covers. Is it a boy thing; this ability to be so comfortable naked? Probably not, I think, looking at Harry. I can almost guarantee that he's been up and dressed for hours.

"I did see Ginny in here before I--"

"Ginny? My sister?" Ron splutters adorably, running back. "You ran into her? What did she see?"

"Enough to inform me that I had the wrong bed. I did escort her out, but..." I shrug, searching for my other sock.

"It's possible."

"Harry, my sister's not a thief!"

"Who, then?" Harry flicks his wand obliquely at his bed's canopy. My sock lands on my head.

"Ron, she probably saw it as removing the means for further... adultery."

"You think she'd think that you and Harry?" Ron sits next to me, so I can fix his tie. "Merlin! That's almost as bad as the truth."

"She can't tell anyone, whatever she knows," Harry says, pointedly enough to suggest we both kindly shut up. "Ron, I need a corridor near the Great Hall with a fifteen to twenty minute window of inaccessibility, sometime before classes start..."

*************

"So. Who fed her the information?"

Harry's plan exceeded its envisaged glory. Ginny arrived on schedule, more nervous than accusative, though that didn't last long. Ron and Harry arrived at separate, staged intervals. No interruptions. Ron, like any Prefect, knows the rhyme and reason behind Hogwarts’ shifting staircases perfectly. We cornered her, I suppose, but that was the idea. Irate Weasleys are abysmal liars.

"I think it's a fair assumption that I saw her source last night."

Ron is still staring down the corridor. He's learnt control as a prefect, but Ginny was spiteful. She's never liked the secrets he must keep from her and liked the truth about the three of us together less.

"Ron?" Harry prods Ron's forearm, awkwardly. "We may not know about last night, but that was definitely your sister just now."

Partway through last year, two Percies were found at the Ministry. They had had everything but their mission oblivated. They'd lived in Percy's own flat and had received regular, anonymous envelopes of red hair. It's assumed that he was alive when they were discovered.

Ron turns slightly, the fading handprint on his cheek now visible. Irate Weasleys.

"It'd be nice, wouldn't it, if Malfoy was the worst we had to deal with?"

A moment passes. Ron's eyes lose their contemplative glaze. He swears.

"New hypothesis, then," Harry says. "Reconvene after lunch?"

Ron nods. They start walking away.

"No!" I shout after them.

"You're eating with McGonagall?" Harry asks, without turning.

"Yes, but regardless, you can't go after Malfoy. You don't know if it's him." Ron's eyes widen, so I continue on, quickly, "I'm not disputing your record, but it's not enough. This is potentially something. We can't tip our hand unless we're certain. We have to wait."

I hate how insecure I feel, despite knowing that I'm right. Harry's half-facing me and Ron's counting under his breath. They're both several steps away.

"Is tomorrow too soon?" Harry asks.

*************

Once, Ron told me that a much bemoaned six feet of Transfiguration essay equalled three woolly backs. (Parchment doesn't grow on trees…) Well, I've counted several doctorates' worth outside the window by now, and, ironically, I'm the only conscious person in the carriage.

All my books are packed, a small grumble when it means that Molly Weasley carted almost all our luggage for us. We almost missed the Express anyway, waking late after getting in late.

At the station, we found Ginny waiting on the platform. Harry's small grumble, even though they're the only people willing to take him.

I should have agreed with him. I'd forgotten how awkward they can be, the silences and nervous chatter. Did I know Lupin was in the Aurors' carriage? Would I care to speculate why? What do I think of Ron's chances for Head Boy? What N.E.W.T.s am I taking?

And from Colin, did Harry not sleep well the night before?

As replacements go, I can't understand Colin. They're both shorter than her, but so is most of Hogwarts. I grant Colin's persistent and equally awed by Harry, but he's always watching, sitting there with his camera, so quiet, so interested.

Frankly, he makes my skin crawl.

They're sleeping now, his head on her shoulder. I wish I could just ask her, to satisfy my curiosity and guilt, but we don't have that sort of friendship.

They look happy enough.

Suddenly, there's a knock on the door and it slides open. It's Ron, finally.

"What's happening?" I ask.

McGonagall chose Ron, because she went to school with a boy named Riddle and, as a prefect, would have had her hands tied. Harry couldn’t be so bound and I’m something like her second chance. Not precisely fair, but I think I've come to terms. It helps that Ron's generous.

"Mandy Brocklehurst actually got married. She'll definitely be Head."

"You mean it's not settled? They're supposed to have already been notified."

"Maybe it slipped the Headmistress' mind!" Ron closes his eyes and counts to ten. "Sorry. Look, do you know where the other Gryffindors are?"

I shake my head.

"I'll be right back." I glimpse Parvati behind him before Ron slides the door shut.

"We want you to know there's no pressure, Hermione, from what happened last night. We talked."

Harry's voice is rough, but he seems otherwise instantly awake. He places a thin, red candle on the window ledge; it balances easily. He lights it with a match.

Harry accios our bags from the luggage rack. He finds his uniform shirt, tie and jumper and lays them out before pulling the shirt he's wearing over his head.

"Shouldn't we wait for Ron, or lock the door?"

"No one but Ron's able to open it, it's spelled." Harry sits down to untie his shoes. "You and Ron haven't."

I blush, and start sorting my own uniform. Logistics, as such, largely hadn't occurred to me, even after last night.

"I suppose we could draw straws, the longest... gets to watch?" Harry coughs, staring at me. "Pity you can't apparate within Hogwarts."

"There is my father's cloak." Harry smiles, a little.

Another knock. I quickly pull up my skirt, holding the zip closed.

"I can't leave you two alone for five minutes," Ron says, glancing inside. "Hey! You've spelled my sister! And her boyfriend."

Harry strides over to shut the door the moment Ron steps completely through. "You didn't complain when I hexed the Dursleys to cover their horrid behaviour as guests."

"Yeah, but--" Ron takes a step towards Harry. His bag flies across the cabin, striking his chest. "--your Muggles are weird..."

"They fell asleep themselves. I made sure they wouldn't wake up at a bad time. It's not technically a hex." The red candle burns still. "Ron, you really wanted to change in front of your sister and Creevey?"

Ron sighs."Just don't-- she's my sister!"

Once Ron's changed, Harry asks for our wands and puts them into his hat. He dabs white liquid from a flask onto his fingers and extinguishes the candle. Possession of a magical artefact, if the candle is what I think it is, is much worse than a mere hex.

"Are we there yet?" Ginny asks, self-consciously shifting away from her boyfriend.

"Ten minutes out," Harry says. "Pick a wand."

*************

"And it says?"

"Well, Slavonic dialects have certain consonants that don't transfer well to the Greek alphabet. I'm almost certain that this symbol was invented."

Parkinson has told me everything irrelevant about the text McGonagall gave me: the papyrus, the scribe, the author (taking ten minutes to explain why the two were different). She's probably memorised it by now.

"That sounds about right, Pansy." Parkinson cannot give an opinion without male approval. This is Runes, so that means Terry Boot.

She stares at the document again, before commenting, "I think--I think it might be a myth. Well, it sounds like one."

"Any details?" McGonagall thinks it might be prophecy, but Parkinson doesn't need to know.

"Oh, someone is injured, badly, by some evil entity. He gets better and then, he follows the evil down to its source. There are several--seven obstacles, and he loses parts of himself at each: his name, his creative imagination, his singing voice and so on, finally, his life. Rebirth motifs are fairly standard. But then it gets quite unusual."

Parkinson smiles at Terry, flashing her perfect teeth's bright, blank expanse and the many diamonds clustered round her finger.

"He finds the source, but he's lost so much that he's exactly the same as the first evil, so the text is rather pointless. The last couplet is traditionally the moral, and a rather literal translation would be... 'without opposition, evil flourishes.'"

"An equally pointless truism. To think you wanted me to take this subject."

Malfoy stands in front of the Advanced Cabbala shelf, perfectly in plain sight and for god knows how long. He's tall, shorter than Ron, but very possibly Ginny's height. Not that that's relevant with Polyjuice.

"Pansy, Darling, I thought I'd find you here, in the library. Are you almost finished?"

Parkinson has already put her notes away. It's almost satisfying to watch, the flipside to her blonde bimbo act. Parkinson isn't an idiot. She and I fight for Firsts in Runes and she usually makes the top ten for Potions. She attributes her results to Terry or Malfoy's help, giggling about how helpless she'd be without them.

"A prefect thing," I ask, simultaneously with Terry's, "a Malfoy thing?"

"A Slytherin-- thing, actually, though all three would be none of your business. Boot. Granger." Malfoy inclines his head just so, twice, before striding away, trailed by his fiancée.

I'd hate Malfoy more if she hadn't brought it upon herself.

*************

I will be their secret keeper, but my parents will not hide: the final compromise in the longest standing argument in our household. They’re willing to humour me one spell, and only because they don’t want paranoia interfering with my final year.

I want to blame them for being non-magical. What's thirteen with one blow, compared to the Easter road toll or a backpack deliberately forgotten in a cafe? However, I can hardly fault them for agreeing with the average magical person, for wanting 'proof before panic', to quote the bloody Minister of Magic. They're not unreasonable. If I had the neat statistics--

But the war isn't hot; it's cold.

Voldemort became invisible. Anyone uncertain planted their head back in the sand, like the Ministry told them to.

Fudge's official line, disseminated through such quality publications as Witch Weekly and the Daily Prophet, spins that Voldemort's return was the rambling of an attention seeking, senile, old man. Supplementary articles focus on Harry, 'groomed' to equal the Dark Lord's power, a parseltongue of unhappy 'Muggle' upbringing, and (though the official enquiry named Crouch Sr. responsible) the faintest promise of murder.

There have been other deaths; nothing conclusively linked, to anyone. Unlucky non-magical people who might have witnessed petty crimes. Ministry officials who splinched themselves, uncanny after sometimes seventy years' practice! Not to mention that most of the old guard were of Dumbledore's generation and have passed on.

Dumbledore is dead.

No sign of foul play has been found, by either investigation. No traces of poison, no physical marks, no spell residue, and naturally, no witnesses. Yes, he was old, and perhaps it's simply hard to accept that Dumbledore could die. I don't know.

Mrs. Figg is also dead, also seemingly of natural causes. We're not sure of much; her cats got to her before anyone noticed.

So, Sirius let Harry go to the Burrow much earlier, put him under the Ministry protection that's more concerned about keeping tabs than keeping Harry alive.

None of us were allowed to be anywhere near London during the summer, in case we gate-crashed the funerals. At least that's logical. We could have been such easy targets.

Plans are in progress, according to Harry. We have both friends and enemies within the Ministry, but as a whole, it's hostile. Phoenix went underground as Dumbledore's credibility slumped. A group whose crack troops include a (former) Death Eater, a convicted multiple murderer and a werewolf does not, for some reason, inspire a great deal of trust. I don't know any specifics, though I couldn't tell my parents about Phoenix even if I thought it would help.

One spell only. I can only hope it's enough.

*************

The spell is essentially a transfiguration application of the 'Fidelus' charm theory. It results in an identity-masking that is less taxing for the caster, in both application and skill-attainment, and is more difficult to detect. Unlike the charm application, this spell can be self-cast, for more contained deployment.

The spell can be cast upon any living entity, animal or human, magical or non-magical. Due to ethical constraints, no non-magical human subjects were tested, but by extrapolation, it is likely that such subjects would follow the trend.

Both animal and human trials were undertaken. (see attached for full details.) The owl, kneazle, and carp subjects exhibited all expected effects, with no discernable deterioration of ability, temper or health. The human subjects quickly became proficient at self-casting, while also reporting only positive effects. In all cases, repeated application had no cumulative effect.

The owl subject experienced delivery difficulties during the trial period. However, this was shown to be related to the recipient's state. The spelled recipients were so effectively masked that, to owls, they no longer existed.

In keeping with the Ministry regulations for use of the 'Fidelus' charm, knowledge of this research has been restricted. Possible applications include surveillance in populated areas, an alternative to glamours and, naturally, protection from identity-based magics.

 

So simple and elegant a spell. Well done. AD

*************

I can't find the medicine, or rather the vitamins. They should be together in one of the kitchen cupboards, I'd thought they were above the glasses, but we seem to have acquired more glasses since then. I flick the torch off, and move to the next cupboard.

Things are never where I expect them to be anymore. It's always small changes, books move shelves, the car changes colour and make-- just enough to know that time doesn't stop when I’m not here. It's awful getting lost in your own house. My parents' house.

Behind me, the boys are giggling quietly in the dark. They're a little drunk.

We went clubbing tonight, or as close as I'm likely to get. Emma left me a standing invitation last holidays. Fortunate, because having dinner with my parents would have been too awkward.

We shared a few fruity drinks with embarrassing names and more alcohol than we expected. Harry had duplicated my P’s, changing details as appropriate. None of us are technically legal.

Not legal to drink, at any rate.

"You know I--" Harry's voice is sudden and loud. "Everything I'm doing, it's just for you two. You know that?"

"Oh, Harry," Ron sighs.

No more giggling behind me as I move to the cupboards beside the stove. I turn to check, in case Harry woke my parents.

They're doing comparatively nothing, sitting along the far side of the kitchen table, with only Ron's arm around Harry's shaking shoulders. I wouldn't have wondered before tonight, but after seeing Harry and Ron on the dance floor...

Harry's usually very reticent about being touched. Tonight, he wasn't. I came back from the amenities and they were barely moving, you couldn't see light between them and they were kissing. Really kissing.

I knew I was seeing something beautiful. Suddenly, I knew that 'we' could work.

I think Emma propositioned me, too, then, somewhere between reminiscing about being seven and thinking boys were ‘yucky’ and complimenting me on 'my boyfriends'. We both smiled and then she started talking about how happy her girlfriend made her.

I've never thought about girls, in that way.

No. In fourth year, I'd had dreams about Angelina Johnson's brilliant, white smile. Something of the dentists' daughter in me, and embarrassing. But fourth year also had Victor, Ron and Harry.

I still have Ron and Harry, and I can't imagine loving anyone else.

"Hermione?" Harry whispers behind me. I turn and--

Harry is kissing me.

Harry has never kissed me like this, unselfconscious, abandoned in me. Someone taller, Ron, holds my hair away from my neck. I can feel his lips there, then kisses slowly down my back as the zip slides down.

Harry smells a little like fruit juice and alcohol and a little like liquorice and soap, but underneath, something is missing. Something that before now, I didn't even know I could miss.

The bodice of my dress slips down, the straps skimming down my arms. Harry's lips on my collarbone. Ron's arms wrapped around us, working at the buttons of Harry's shirt. Ron smells wrong, too, not himself.

It's as though I've brought home two strangers.

I can't--

"My, my parents," I stammer, pushing out with limbs made of jelly. "We can't," I start to say, but, they've already stopped moving.

Harry's eyes are black, looking at me, looking through me at Ron. He smiles. Two fleeting kisses, my left shoulder and the top of my head. We untangle.

I'm so cold. I quickly pull my dress up, trying to make the zip work-- giving up before Ron offers to help. Harry hands me the torch and the Berocca tube, neither the worse for their fall.

I'd been so proud to use my spell, even for something as trivial as this. I'd preened when Emma commented that she hardly recognised me.

I think I'm going to be sick.

*************

"Either of you fancy a broomstick ride?"

I wonder sometimes what will happen after. I don't understand how we work so perfectly together, just that it feels right the way nothing else does anymore.

"It'll rain," Ron warns, not looking up from his Divination homework.

Harry smile is strained. I can just see the edge of his Gryffindor Captain's robes under his uniform. Harry wants to fly, even though a shatterproof charm is all that keeps the common room windows from breaking. And, really, want pales as a description.

Ron vents. I vent. Harry festers until he flies it out in storms like this, the way he used to in Quidditch. The season was a single match in fifth year, Slytherin versus Hufflepuff. Last year, there were no matches at all.

I think Ron knows that one of us won't survive the war, and that he knows who. I hate myself for hoping it will be me. They have something that an 'honorary' boy can't understand. I'm frightened of after. Without the war's focus, I'm not sure who I am.

Besides, we fought before Harry, too often and over trivial things, as if in some way we knew that something, someone, was missing.

There's never going to be anyone else for us, any of us.

It hurt Harry to see us fight, so we stopped. I've taken on three research projects besides my schoolwork and Ron's learnt to count backwards from ten, in twenty-five languages. But we don't vent, for Harry, and we learnt to fly.

We don't follow him into storms to provide company. He has a seeker mentality, alone on the pitch unless something happens. We follow so that he isn't tempted.

My broom is a second-hand Nimbus, exceptionally well maintained without my lifting a finger. Ron has Harry's old Firebolt, equally polished. Harry's not good with words.

"I need five more minutes to finish this paragraph," I say.

"Sure? It's practically Slytherin Quidditch weather out there." Weather he'd wish on his worst enemy if he wasn't so desperate to be out there himself. That I'm not at my best on a broomstick and that he'd die before forcing me to fly.

I fell off the first time we went storm riding, my first memory any time I've looked at a broom since. The slippery surface of the handle slick against my fingers, then nothing but cold and wet. I also remember the pain of contacting Harry and his broom, then waking up to Nurse Pomfrey relocating my shoulder-- Harry had caught my hand when I tumbled off him.

It was the first time I noticed that they smelt almost the same, that Harry borrowed the generic 'Weasley' shampoo and smelt of liquorice like Ron did up-close. It was before 'us' included Harry and I felt guilty for weeks.

I'd rather fall again than let Harry kill himself in the rain.

"We'll be soaked," Ron adds, which is mild and comforting. It's irrational I know, but I feel so much better seeing him put his homework away.

"I'm quite proficient at drying charms," I add, closing my own notebook. "Only until dinner, right?"

Harry nods, his smile gaining reality. He accios our broomsticks from the locker by his bed. No one screams on the stairwell, but by now, you'd hope Gryffindor had learned to duck.

*************

It's still raining when I return. They're standing back to back, under a lantern hanging above the top step. Twenty minutes ago, Ron wouldn't have let me walk out of earshot with Firenze, though it's the wrong time of the month to worry. Right now, I'm standing a foot away, my teeth chattering, and he hasn't noticed.

"Five?"

"Fish. Death?"

"Here."

A card from each of their hands pairs up mid-air, hanging eye-level on Harry's side. Death and Temperance. His other pairs are swords and staves, which even I recognise as a morbid selection.

"What a coincidence," Harry says, flatly. "How about The Hanged Man?"

"You're not going to die." Ron tries to make his voice light.

"Professional opinion, that? I thought this was just a game."

"It is! That's why they don't mean-- Hermione!" Ron's embrace is warm, wet and brief. "You are all right?"

"Nothing dry clothes wouldn't fix." We're drenched because 'umbrella' charms are too risky, too visible. We fly outside the wards, something discouraged, but not strictly forbidden. Forbidden can be too tempting.

"What did he want?" Harry holds out Ron's Tarot, neatly shuffled back into a deck. It's half an apology, and Ron takes it with half-forgiveness.

I tell them the abbreviated version, the text and its providence, leaving out Firenze's poor opinion of my spell. Dark and unnatural, its use amounts to stealing someone’s soul away. Apparently, it's also the catalyst for enacting the text as prophecy.

Never mind that Dumbledore approved it. That, for nearly a year, the Phoenixes have only had compliments. That Harry's used it longer and more frequently and said nothing. That I've trusted my parents with it!

He all but accused me of meddling in 'that which I do not understand.' All in the earnest rambling that people like Trelawney love, so vague that hindsight can fit it to anything.

I've wasted the day.

They nod when I stop speaking, still too hurt to have listened properly. I wish there were words, phrases that could touch Harry the way a hug might. In public, Harry doesn't let anyone within a foot of him.

I wish I could be with them tonight, a familiar feeling if the reasons are new. It’s hard to accept that sometimes that I can’t follow them. We have to find Harry's cloak.

I miss so much already.


	4. Temperantia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry never intended it to become such a mess.

"Thursday's child has far to go..."

\---

"You wouldn't die for me, would you?"

"I would live for you, my Lord. Pyrrhic victories do not win wars."

Tom plays haphazardly, though his queen rarely endangers herself. Lucius plays with care, though he always loses, convincingly. Even after all this time, Harry's not good enough at chess to tell which is the better player.

"Not all sacrifices must be in vain, Lucius. I would not cut the imposing figure you behold, if not for men such as 'Barty' Crouch."

"I admit the need for a certain number of fanatics, but contenting them should not come before broader agendas."

Each move carries a verbal component, sometimes very veiled comments about Death Eater activities, past or present. The last decipherable move had been a disparaging comment about Lucius' choice in protégés.

It's performance and taunting. Tom spouts too many aphorisms not to know that Harry's watching. He's learnt (or Lucius Malfoy has taught him) that the most important battle is fought for the high moral ground. The plan, this time, is to let the white hats shoot themselves with their paranoid ravings. It's working well.

"Blood and circuses, Lucius? Like Spain?"

"No one has ever expected Spaniards to be patient, my Lord."

There's no point in waiting. Harry wakes, reaching for his notebook.

*************

Ron is solid in sleep, drooling, snoring and warm. It's too easy for Harry to lose himself in him. Or Hermione, but she isn't here, and won't be. Harry feels a little dark satisfaction that fate is keeping her away. She deserves better, but so does Ron.

Harry never intended it to become such a mess.

In the beginning, Hermione had kissed him, and he'd thought about it, and her, a lot that summer. Until he'd remembered that Ron liked her first.

So, he'd thought about Ron, like he hadn't since the night after the second task. Cedric and Viktor had rescued their 'girlfriends', and he'd gotten Ron? Well, Fleur had been supposed to rescue her sister except she probably didn't idly think about...

Two, lithe, blonde veela-girls...

It'd been all right to think about them, even if their faces shifted when he got close, if their hair wasn't always so blonde. They were safe, fantasy.

Sometime that summer, Harry had realised that he felt the same about Hermione and Ron. So, he couldn't want to kiss either. Boys didn't kiss other boys, after all, and if his mind had put Hermione in the same box, all the better. He didn't like fighting with Ron.

*************

"How are you?" Lupin asks, using a poker to move the kettle from the fire.

"Apart from the constant migraine, fine." Harry shrugs.

In his distinct hierarchy, Lupin falls into the same category as Ginny, loved by someone that Harry loves. Talking is easier for that casual disregard. Harry doesn't have to be nice, be careful, or sugar-coat how much everything fucking hurts. Lupin never tries to fix it, or blame himself.

Most mornings, he can't stand the sight of either of *them*, so he breakfasts with Lupin. The fare's always the same, black toast and bitter tea, but Harry can't remember having an appetite.

Lupin lives where Hagrid used to, outside the castle wards. Senior DADA classes are optional this year, but very interesting. There's a lot you can do with a small class. They could talk shop, or plans, but Lupin's also very good for nostalgia on tap.

James knew all the school rules, so that he knew just how far they would bend. He was an obsessive bibliophile who made himself require glasses by third year. Lily was wild, passionate but with the best intentions. She was fond of charming her hair various strange colours. Sirius was insane, said fondly without elaboration.

"I moved around quite a bit after graduating, left Britain entirely soon after your parents' wedding."

Lupin smiles, but only with his lips.

"Things were getting worse, everywhere, but I was caught up in--a rather disastrous emotional mess, so I left. I ran away. I regretted hearing about your birth from a letter, though I was glad to read about Sirius in a newspaper three months old... It sounds terrible, but he was-- we were good friends. He could have asked anything of me. For a werewolf, that much loss of control... It terrified me. It still does. To find that beyond that he'd gone Dark..."

"You weren't then? I thought--" Harry stops, carefully watching Lupin's slow exit from his memories. "He was always so ambiguous about you."

"Oh. No, Sirius and I weren't, as it were, before--well, before. We... are now, though."

"Hermione thinks it's cute," Harry shrugs. "Were you happy?"

It appears to surprise Lupin. "We are. Possibly a little too used to hiding, but we are."

"Tell me about it," Harry says, in lieu of a hypocritical comment about unhealthy relationships. Or asking what happened at his parent's wedding.

"Sirius would--"

"He might not get the chance." It echoes, loudly.

"Harry, I would know if he were gone." And perhaps because Harry doesn't care, Lupin allows him to see the frank pain in his gold-silver eyes.

"I may not survive, Lupin. I may never see him again. Tell me now."

*************

Harry doesn't like Muggles.

Raised by the very worst, how could he? Of course, he's met Hermione's parents, receiving the curious glances of parents towards their daughter's best male friend, who is also best friends with their daughter's boyfriend. They tapped about in his mouth before announcing that he didn't grind his teeth, so his headaches were obviously stress-related, very normal for the final years of secondary school. Harry should just try to be less stressed, however one accomplished that.

Harry does not like Muggles, but he doesn't like the magical world, either. They broke Sirius. They hurt Lupin. They made Ron so fucking insecure because they preferred being Harry-bloody-Potter's surrogate parents than actually giving a toss about son number six.

He-- they left him to be raised by monsters. Malnutrition would cut a foot and a half from his height. Neglect would make him distrustful, but desperate for affection. Harry would fall in love, knowing blood-deep that everything he is and wants, is fundamentally wrong. They call him 'the boy who lived', though 'survived' suits him better. But why would you care if your weapon could love?

Strangely, he does love Hermione and Ron, though they're Muggle-born and wizard-born, respectively. Sometimes, he thinks that it might be enough.

*************

It happens in an instant. One moment, Harry is telling Malfoy that he doesn't hold a torch for Ginny--

"Not everything is about you, Potter. Pure coincidence that we both prefer redheads."

\--the next, Ron holds one hand gingerly with the other and Malfoy presses his fingers against his split lip, then meticulously licks them clean.

'Above all things, I will keep the peace...'

Malfoy isn't this elegant a strategist. He is, however, an opportunist. McGonagall would believe them, but standards have to be maintained.

"You're right, Ron. I shouldn't have hit Malfoy." Harry says it loud for the crowd down the hall.

"He'd no right to say that about your parents, Harry, but it's never all right to fight--"

"Potter lost his temper," Malfoy interrupts, looking down from his bloody fingertips. "I'd hardly call that a fight, but it's not me you'll have to convince. I'll be seeing you in her office, Weasley."

The crowd parts before Malfoy reaches it and begins to disperse. Harry idly wonders how long until the news reaches Hermione. She warned them.

"Malfoy bought it," Ron says, with a weak laugh. "I should go before he tells too many lies."

"He won't. He knows it'll be his word against mine. There are some advantages to being Harry Potter's boyfriend." Harry turns to glare at their remaining audience.

"You've... you've never called me that before."

It's painful to hear such quiet joy.

"Ron--"

"Don't apologise. It's not a perfect world."

They understand each other so well, so much could, and would, go unsaid. They stand there a moment, not looking at each other's lips. Ron is still smiling.

"Any preferences for detention?" Ron asks, finally.

"Surprise me."

*************

The summer after his O.W.L.s, Harry had been technically allowed unsupervised magic and Dudley had demanded to be made slim. Harry had asked why, or how he was going to be paid when Dudley's parents were so paranoid.

It took his cousin a while, at wandpoint, but finally, Dudley sank to his knees, closed his eyes and licked his lips.

Harry had laughed, because Dudley looked ridiculous. He hadn't known what his cousin was offering.

Then, Dudley had called Harry a faggot, among other things, because Harry had apparently been screaming 'Cedric' and 'Tom', disturbing Dudley's beauty sleep (and midnight snacks).

Harry bites his lip when he wants to scream, but even now, he hasn't found a decent way to control himself asleep. Dudley had been right, though, even if his proof had been all wrong.

Harry does like boys (and girls, but that's a bit too fine a distinction for someone like Dudley).

In exchange for keeping this horrific revelation secret, Harry had agreed to make him thin, by increments, with no guarantees concerning side-effects and with a solemn understanding that if Dudley squealed, Harry would make him weigh twice as much as he did to start with, or kill him. Harry isn't sure if he'd been joking.

*************

"Harry! I, you hit Malfoy?"

He nods, moving further into the common room. They're always given a wide berth now, which is something to be grateful for.

"Have you any idea how stupid that was? He's a Prefect! You attacked Slytherin!"

They sit as far apart as they can on the same sofa. Hermione is vibrating with tension, but she keeps her voice to shrill whispers. Harry clenches his fists to stop himself reaching over. He can't comfort her, and what would trite, apologetic words achieve?

"McGonagall will have to pass it to Sinistra, and I've no idea what she'll think is appropriate. Not to mention what'll happen once the tabloids hear about this. And you ask me why I worry about the two of you alone. Honestly, all that testosterone--"

"We don't think much about Malfoy when we're alone."

"I didn't think you did." Hermione smiles, faintly. "When I'm alone in my big, empty bed, he's the last thing--Don't change the subject! I can't believe you--"

"He said something about a shared preference for redheads. Everyone knows how bloody hot I am for Ginny."

Hermione goes white and still.

"The idiot," she hisses. "He didn't?"

"Officially, it was my parents and Malfoy won't push his luck. Hermione, he knows."

She puts her face in her hands and rubs her eyes. He turns, just watching her from the corner of his eye. It wouldn't do for Hermione Granger and Harry Potter to have a moment in public.

"I'm not surprised, though. I checked Ginny. She wouldn't talk to me, but nothing suspicious has been cast on her in the past month. And... Colin told me that they'd had a fight, 'boyfriends, girlfriends, you know'."

"Ginny had a fight with her 'boyfriend'?"

"I know. Ron'll be upset that she's infatuated, not enchanted. I just-- I thought Colin was strange."

"She fell for Tom," Harry shrugs. "Bet you five pounds that's where my cloak is."

"Harry, we... you know we can't do anything now. At all."

It'll be harder to convince Ron, but he can't explain that to her. The cloak is gone, and she's almost safe from him.

"I woke up this morning so happy it was a Thursday. Habit, I guess," Hermione sighs. "You'll... think of me, won't you?"

Harry nods.

*************

That summer, Dudley had been guinea pig for all of Harry's various assignments. ('Feathers? Oh well, magic wasn't made for Muggles.') He'd also answered Harry's pointed questions about this thing Smeltings taught its well-rounded young gentlemen, before being oblivated and told he liked carrots.

For the first time, Harry had had words. 'Faggots' like other boys. Yes, Harry is horribly deviant--for Dudley, this goes hand-in-hand with being a wizard, but there are words. Harry isn't the only one.

He likes...

It had been difficult, even then. He'd found himself talking around it in his head. When he asked Hermione to pass something, and noticed how tight her blouse pulled. When he accidentally glanced at Ron getting dressed. When he found himself wanking off thinking about them, not veelas, together.

The last had been a rather large hint.

Eventually, he'd admitted that he found them both attractive. Not pretty like Cho Chang. Not alluring like Fleur Delacour. Not gorgeous like pictures of Sirius from before-- just, before.

Attractive. He'd defined it by what he could no longer do. He couldn't not fight smiles when he thought of them. He couldn't want to die if only he could take Tom with him. He couldn't say no and, above all, he couldn't let them know that.

Yet, it hadn't meant anything, necessarily, still. They'd been together, so there'd been no temptation. No chance. Except that they still broke up, regularly.

He'd wanted to throttle Ron every time he went off into 'she doesn't want me, too tall--no one would want me', every time he'd watched Ron point out all the freckles that no one could possibly want... to just lick them off him if it would make Ron shut up!

Knowing had meant actively wishing that he didn't want them whenever he'd been conscious.

Thinking of his cousin on his knees every time Harry woke up screaming, because Ron had still climbed into bed to comfort him. Sometimes, Harry would insist that it'd been Tom, but usually he'd just let Ron spoon against his back, hoping that he wouldn't ask why nightmares left Harry half-hard.

Hermione had been much easier to deal with. There have always been rumours and she's the most careful amongst them. Harry had sometimes wondered if she could tell.

Last year, when Ron had been called home for that Percy thing, he'd sat up with her all night waiting for him. They fell asleep on each other. When he'd woken around five, she'd been awake, blushing but wouldn't tell. He still isn't sure what he did.

By that point, Harry had just wanted it to stop. They put up with him. They didn't deserve this.

He'd started writing letters, first to either of them, which he burnt, and then to Sirius, which he'd kept until the next draft. It had been difficult describing this black, hateful thing he could barely stand thinking about, convincing himself over and again to just ignore it. Sirius would be disgusted.

Eventually, Harry did send off something. Too late. Sirius had already been under Hermione's spell. The owl had bounced.

Ron had read it.

*************

The world is fucked, Harry is sure.

Lupin has small, round burn-marks everywhere clothing can conceal. Harry has a pot of pink ointment Ron's mother left. This should be more awkward, but Harry just smears and blanks out what he shouldn't be looking at. This man his godfather is fucking, or was, maybe, because Sirius is too far away to ask. For different reasons, he'd feel no less comfortable doing this for Ron or Hermione, but only for her, he wouldn't be allowed.

Harry wonders when he'll stop asking the world to make sense.

"It's barbaric."

"If I were anyone else, you would be glad they did their job properly." Lupin talks about Aurors the way Hermione does Prefects. "Twenty years ago, they would have locked me up for a month. Or, flayed a limb, trying to prove a perennial fallacy--" Lupin winces.

Harry lifts his fingers a little from a burn you can still read '..ckle.'

They're talking on eggshells, only the very distant or very recent past. He's heard how Lupin had wanted to be a researcher at fifteen and that Dumbledore had found him a discreet firm only too willing to have a werewolf on site. Tom was in ascendancy. Anything could be signed off as extra credit.

Harry had half-expected old scars, round, but Lupin heals, even wolfsbane-coated wounds, and his skin is flawless and smooth. Harry probably shouldn't be touching, either.

"I misjudged how long Bella would stay in London after the funeral, but all's well that ends well." Lupin yawns. "I doubt I could have kept your present hidden past the moon."

Harry wipes his hands on a towel and accios Lupin's briefcase as directed. He guesses the combination, the date Sirius broke out. It's a mess inside, paper, quills and books, and from the grimace on Lupin's face, more of a violation than any of the Aurors' tests.

Harry gathers seventeen, equally slim, red candles scattered throughout. He holds one up, questioningly; the rest aren't screaming.

"I shouldn't have doubted," Lupin says, wryly. "Happy Birthday, Harry, from all of us. That was cut from a Hand of Glory, though it still works. There should also be a hipflask in there, somewhere. You'll have to carry milk with you to put it out."

An impromptu DADA lesson, half the reason Harry thinks Lupin is here. At this stage of things, Lupin's time-of-the-month would also be a little too problematic for fugitives.

"I don't want to trap myself asleep."

"You can't. Lighting a Hand of Glory traps those already sleeping. Sirius said that that might be useful, and, well, you can't fool a werewolf's nose."

Lupin is blushing.

"I love them," Harry says. It sounds a feeble excuse. It is.

He and Ron are teenage wizards, but Hermione... she'd smiled, last night, and asked to kiss him. They'd let him sleep between them; in pyjamas, but, when he'd woken from a nightmare, their voices and invisible hands had been his whole world.

Harry's not sure he could tell even Sirius that, and Lupin, however they're related, isn't his godfather.

"Someone once told me there's a reason why a tripod has three legs instead of two. I'm glad for you," Lupin says, with a sleepy wistfulness that almost embarrasses Harry.

He should be used to people exceeding his expectations.

Harry hadn't wanted to be anything at fifteen. What did desire have to do with destiny? Even when Tom forgot his annual appointment, he hadn't had a choice. Instead of letting him drop the extra O.W.L, Dumbledore had taken Harry to a small, forgotten room with a table and a time-turner. Harry had been given a list of places and times, several not to visit under any circumstances, and several more suggested for safely observing Tom's "reign of terror" mark one.

An hour or so later, Dumbledore had returned, the grinning senile fool. He'd congratulated Harry's self-control, his now proven character. The 'time-turner' had actually been a port-key to Dumbledore's office, which wasn't too unexpected. Magical artefacts, like time-turners, have magic woven through them. Harry hadn't been about to touch one with a spell cast over it.

Harry's eyes can no longer see illusions, but he got glasses to fix that. People usually prefer white lies.

He unfolds a sheet, gingerly placing it lengthways for modesty's sake. Lupin inclines his head and shuts his eyes.

Harry searches his pockets for a box of matches. Lupin has earned his rest.

*************

That summer had been a summer of negotiations. Hermione speaks logic natively, and Ron's a sentimental idiot. Harry wouldn't have them any other way.

They spent a little less than a month talking, and just when Harry had almost grasped the new status quo, he'd pulled it out from under himself.

He could blame the drinks, the queer club they got them at and Hermione's wonderful spell that faded him better than the cloak ever did. He hadn't been that unholy amalgam of famous initials, his father's hair, his mother's eyes... Tom's scar. He'd just been a boy who loved.

There's an emotional virginity that first love destroys. You can't take back words or looks, kisses or touches.

The first night of term, Hermione had snuck up to their room. Harry couldn’t say no. Telling them what Dudley had told him had been all he could give them, practical knowledge for their romance and liberal sensibilities. He'd loved them too much not to try to explain one last time.

It did not work.

Hermione had had vague ideas about how the bits fitted together. She'd pulled a box of condoms and thin tube from her robes when he'd finished speaking. Ron, on the other hand, had been incoherent from shock through most of it, moving from 'that's disgusting!' to 'won't I hurt you?' by the end. Harry only knows Ron from the inside in his dreams.

Harry can't talk about what they do with poetry. It's messy. It hurts. And, for some reason, it's the most addictive thing he knows. Hermione sometimes jokes that they go through condoms like chewing gum, and she's not even here every night.

She's never going to be here again...

He's thought too many times about what he could have done differently. If he'd chosen one, he'd have lost the other, and possibly both. If he'd controlled himself just that tiny bit better, they'd have never known. They'd never have cut him out of their lives completely. But, if it had gone on much longer, he'd have made them hate him.

That's something he still half-wants.

*************

Harry has nightmares. It sounds so dramatic.

Harry has dreams that he wakes screaming from. Some have Tom in them, which aren't really dreams, but are. Calling those 'nightmares' is about as pretentious as calling Tom by his anagram, but it does keep Ron and Hermione at bay. Harry has dreams about them, too, which require spells to clean up after himself. Sometimes, they run into each other as dreams do. They're all equally tedious, which is difficult to explain when they still manage to pull screams from him.

Take tonight, for example.

They'd had a picnic, somewhere unrecognisable that he'd known instinctively was near the Burrow. They'd swum and eaten and laughed and made love (Dream-Ron objected when Harry called it 'sex'). They'd napped, naked in the sunshine.

As the sun begun to set, Harry had curled into Ron for warmth, slowly realising that that was because Hermione was cold. Too cold and quiet, though you could still imagine she was asleep. Avada Kevadra leaves an unmarked corpse, or perhaps she'd been poisoned.

It'd still been his fault.

Now, beyond the obvious themes of guilt, death by association and wet dream, there is a very simple explanation for something like this. His body misses Hermione.

Ron kisses him, messily, "...you didn't. Merlin, Harry! What did I--"

"I love you," he says, holding Ron against and inside him.

"...I love you, too, you masochist."

There are more kisses, because Ron needs convincing of his technique and his worth, before Ron pushes up to his hands and knees and shuffles backwards.

"What? Who-- Hermione?"

"Lumos!" Once Harry's eyes adjust, he sees naked Ron hugging fully-uniformed Hermione. Blurred, but definitely Hermione.

"I... I couldn't stay away, not tonight, not... I was just lying there, thinking about all the lonely nights stretching out in front of me and I had to... No one, I don't think anyone saw me. I waited for Parvati..."

"I don't care why you're here."

Harry sounds harsh to himself. Hermione looks an inch away from crying, was more afraid that he wouldn't want her here than of anyone finding out. He's a little stunned that he could hurt her that much.

"I--I'm glad." Harry moves quickly down the bed. He knows he probably looks stupid, but suddenly that's okay.

"I missed you, Hermione." His arms go around both of them, and he kisses her. "I missed you so much."

Harry's always thought that Hermione and Ron never thought through what 'this' involves, or that 'this' was just a series of pity-fucks that he'd somehow subverted out of their friendship, but he realises now that that's not true. They do love him, as wonderfully and terribly as he does them.

Maybe, just maybe, that makes it all right.

"Yeah," Ron says, kissing her, too, and then one of Harry's shoulders. "We love you. So, how long have you been sitting there?"

"A while," Hermione says, with a shy smile. "You were sleeping, and then I... I like to watch."

"Do you now?" Ron grins. "And you haven't even taken your tie off."

"Obviously I need help."

"What would you do without us?"

'Love' isn't enough to describe the way this feels. It's too small, too short. There have to be better words, somewhere, but Harry's not sure that that's important anymore.

"Start on the shoes, Harry, and I'll meet you in the middle." Ron winks and Hermione giggles.

They love him, and that's everything.


	5. Caritas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything had become grey, except Weasley who is colour wherever she's touched.

Friday's child is loving and giving...

\---

Draco has a small box in his travelling trunk, sequestered beneath a jumper and several nasty protective spells. The box contains carefully labelled papyrus envelopes, which in turn contain fractions of people; hair, nails, dried blood, and so on. It is a library that he has spent his entire Hogwarts career accumulating. Such a petty achievement, when no one else is as careful with their person as they should be, but that seems fitting.

Petty, but useful, is exactly how his father would describe Draco himself, and Draco knows better than to question his father, though he will admit it as a lesson recently learnt. A lesson that is reinforced with every throb of his scar. He would have called the sensation pain, before, as well.

The scar is still livid, red where the blade seared and black where it bled. It looks painted on. Draco wonders if necessity perfected Snape's technique, as he finds that dangling sleeves are such a hindrance.

Polyjuice is easy enough once one knows the method; the key is preparation. Half the ingredients are common. Draco wheedled several chips of bicorn horn from Snape during the course of the previous year, by overestimating his research requirements. Anyone with any sense knows that boomslang skin has one primary use, and so, Draco spent the summer persuading his father to part with a very minor piece. That piece is now gone, and it is only four weeks into the September term.

The potion has simmered constantly since Tuesday night’s excursion, preserving, while also reducing. Barely two doses remain, porridge-like, to be scraped into carry-vials. Draco tops each with a measure of pure rain water, adding a red hair to one and a blonde hair to the other.

He shakes the vials for a count of sixty.

He is not surprised that the 'blonde' potion becomes thickly pungent of violets, a lurid magenta in tone; a guess, but an accurate one. He places that vial in a robe pocket next to a scrap of parchment.

The other dose has become the colour of blood. It smells of nothing beyond the potion. Draco fancies, however, that beneath the foul, thick vegetable taste of fluxweed and knotgrass, he can taste a thin, familiar, undercurrent of cinnamon.

*************

'Gorodok Gargoyles.'

Draco mouths the Gryffindor password to the mirror, still too awed to try her voice. He hadn't doubted his skill, but the transformation has left him somewhat startled.

Her hair draws him, mostly, too bright against the tiles, too heavy and pulling on the back of his head. Her nipples are redder than Pansy's. Her tan lines go further down than he had estimated. Draco looks away once he notices that he had begun to tally the freckles along her right forearm.

He has plans for tonight. The thought mollifies his father's part in him, slightly.

Weasley's under-nourished form does not betray the masculine cut of his loosest set of robes. Her height is almost identical, which he attributes to gangly Weasley blood. And so, with a word and a wave, he puts away the pins he brought to alter the hem.

He sees her with two pairs of eyes. His father sees her hair as a mark of impurity, the number of generations required to breed it out. Draco sees the vivid redness and the way it moves like liquid when he turns her head.

"Hello."

Weasley-in-the-mirror enlivens at her own voice. She grins, looking away, looking back. He sounds pathetic, nervous, but excited rather than shrill. It is perfect.

He removes a comb from a bag, running its teeth cleanly through. "Texocrinitio," plaits the hair into two even ropes, the weight redistributing to his temples. Remembering her appearance at dinner, he binds the ends with thin red and gold ribbon.

He sees her in the mirror, her hands when his mind thinks he is raising his own. He shouldn't be enjoying this so much.

*************

Draco believes in making his own luck, but her year room is empty. Weasley is as invisible as she has oft complained; no one questioned his movements through their common room. It is still earlier in the night, but, like his previous visit, this is all too easy.

Gryffindors.

He coughs politely beside the closed curtains of her bed. The feminine catch to it sounds different, but right.

"Weasley, a word?"

Ginny Weasley throws open her curtains, eyes as bright as her hair. She kneels on the edge of the bed, legs still tangled within sheets and wearing a white nightdress. He prefers her in colour, or honestly, perhaps nothing at all. She stares at herself with wide-eyed fear that gradually becomes fascination.

He sits next to her on her bed, shutting the curtains behind him. He smoothes the infinite creases and folds of his robes. They bunch differently on her body. He has the confidence of one and a half successful trips and forty-five minutes leisure to examine the details.

"Is it... Polyjuice...? Are you...?" She reaches tentatively forward, brushing his cheek with a salty-slick hand. "I'm sorry, I..."

She falls onto him, weeping. He knows she cries often, has cried in his company much more than once or twice. Ordinarily, her tears are something to be ignored, falling behind her hair or folded arms on a desktop. Now, however, mucus begins to seep through Draco's robes. Weasley apologises for this, too, amongst many other, incoherent hiccuppings.

S/he holds her carefully, gentle for unfamiliarity. Her hands had tangled in his/her robes when she'd fallen onto him/her. S/he runs her/his fingers through her hair, as s/he waits for her to stop. While exactly the same colour and length, the hair on her head feels better. It smells better.

Weasley looks up at her/him, smiling weakly.

S/he kisses her then, not wanting her to mistake this for the comfort of a friend. Her lips taste like blood, no, tears, though they run clear as s/he thinks blood should.

Their torsos tilt like their noses and she feels Weasley's hand slide between them and across her chest. She can feel the split second of recognition in their kiss before Weasley's hands push herself away.

Weasley sits at the other end of the bed, holding her hands tightly against her own chest. She'd kissed a girl, her twin, even if it's simply a Polyjuice illusion. Draco's better at reading Pansy, but from the measured rise and fall of her chest, she thinks Weasley's already over the shock.

"Would you believe that's only the third time I've ever been kissed?" Weasley jokes, wiping her eyes. "Can you--how long will you stay?"

It strikes her then: Weasley shouldn't have to die. She doesn't know this is borrowed time for them both. Every Weasley will die; she knows her father will see to it.

And, naturally, Draco is already dead.

*************

He can't remember when it began, the first time his always-sharp nail scissors moved from keratin to flesh. A callus that offended him, perhaps, but he'd quickly been enraptured to find one error that could be erased without pain. And then, he'd learnt that others could be painlessly caused.

Malfoy blood is not to be spilt without purpose. Bruises (so visible on pale skin), cuts or other injuries are not to be tolerated. They show clumsiness, ineptitude branded on him. Weakness.

Draco has sometimes stood shivering on the soles of his feet, the only skin his father doesn't check. The skin indented with centimetre long, pointed ovals, each shape blurring with the next, an organic mottling marring the inherited perfection of each sole. It is a continuing effort to retain his chaotic designs. Draco twitches the month before break, trying, vainly, to allow nature to overrun his management. This is his secret, and it is all his own initiative.

Performed properly, it does not hurt, though his feet are tender afterwards, a day or so of sandpaper socks. It is a measure of control and precision, sometimes, a compulsion. It calms him before he studies because it requires his full attention, almost like meditation.

To begin with, he'd collected the slices of skin in a envelope filed between nail clippings and combed-out hair. To be less careful with one's person would be suicidal. When the envelope grew too fat, he did not send them to his father (and his pointed questions); he disposed of them like spilt semen or blood.

Draco always drinks from his own cup.

In his rare accidents, Draco is always surprised to find that his blood is red. It seems wrong, a colour against the monochrome of pale skin and black veins, the possibility that something lives within him still.

It is a body, flesh and bone. It should be empty.

Snape is the only other person who'd known about his feet; he'd caught him cutting. Draco should have understood then, when his weakness did not reach his father.

"You'll be pleased to learn that Miss Weasley's marks improved significantly over the course of this year. I have Professor McGonagall's word that extra credit from this assignment will rank you above Miss Granger in Potions."

Snape shuffles the papers on his desk, placing them in a small valise. Without those trappings of a schoolmaster, Draco suddenly realises that they'd come to other business.

"You'll be marked before I see you again. It will hurt more than you can imagine." Snape never believed that sensation was not the object of Draco's injuries. "Take your mind away if you'd like to retain your sanity. Happy memories work best, I'm told, but heavily detailed are a workable second option."

Draco hadn't known it could hurt like that, that anything could hurt so much for so long. He'd tried, but the blood had been all he could see.

Somewhere, sometime in that eternity of watching his blood seep and flow down his arm, pooling on the floor, he had realised that it was the same colour as Weasley's hair.

*************

Kissing Weasley gets easier every time. Draco is pleased that not all girls are like Pansy. Weasley has bloomed in her hands, which are still paler even though they match freckle for freckle.

She's lost her cloak only and Weasley's still in her nightgown, but she doesn't need another of Weasley's brothers' seeing-through sweets to know that's all Weasley is wearing. The boning would hurt at least one of them, considering the way they've tangled. Draco wonders why girls wear brassieres at all, if they would prevent this.

"I was afraid that you'd be like Tom," Weasley's eyes are only half there and her fingers twitch across Draco's exposed collarbone. "He was so nice to me, so understanding and I loved talking, well, writing, to him. This was when I was a first--"

"I wanted to be the Heir of Slytherin." She had wanted to be the topic of all her father's correspondence, to be something vital or useful. She had wondered why her father had gained a sudden curiosity about Arthur Weasley's daughter. Her guesses had run towards less professional reasons.

Draco is pinned by an arm and a leg, which would matter if this body were masculine, but it isn't and it doesn't. She likes Weasley's weight and warmth, the reflected softness of their bodies and the way they fit together. She likes Weasley's kisses that have become smiles against her skin as Weasley's confidence has grown.

Draco is surprised by how soothing she finds this, simply kissing and being touched. Weasley knows exactly how and where, how hard and how much. Draco can't be hard in this body, but that hasn't happened since she was marked; instead, she feels so pleasantly liquid and warm under Weasley.

"I *was* the Heir, in a way. He used me, used me to do all those horrible things."

"I shouldn't have asked for the password."

Her plan first netted faulty information and an invisibility cloak. Further refinements did not shatter the trio, as Draco had planned, though they seemed to destroy Weasley. She would never have attempted a seduction otherwise.

A salvaged, secondary objective: to destabilise the Weasleys.

"You're different," Weasley says with a smile, before shifting, and something very good happens to their very tangled legs.

For a moment, Draco wonders that there are witches in the world like this, that distinguish between being used for sex or being used for acts of terrorism or whatever unnamed thing she wants from her.

"You're... honest. You didn't have to tell me about Ron and..."

"Would you like a tour of Slytherin?"

Weasley sits up, far too abruptly and folds up into herself. Draco follows automatically; her head feels a little light.

"I-- I don't like dungeons."

"They're not as finely appointed--"

"I nearly died in a dungeon, remember," Weasley blurts out, and Draco remembers the sordid story vomited out mid-way through the previous year. They never met in Potions classrooms again.

"I have a door that locks." The statement pulls Weasley's gaze back with a pretty sort of shock written in her eyes. "And I hope I could be more distracting than my bedroom walls."

Draco can't smile in any way Weasley would be distracted by, so she pats herself down for pockets. It takes much longer than she expected it would, especially once Weasley decides to help.

"What is it?" Weasley asks, taking the carry-vial and parchment instructions. One should never give options one does not have a contingency plan for. "Or should I ask: who is it?"

"Pansy."

"Pansy Parkinson! Your... isn't she your... girlfriend?"

"My fiancée, actually, but you can't be surprised that I prefer your company." She does looks surprised, so Draco adds, "I don't love Pansy." And Weasley's eyes widen at that.

She supposes Weasley assumes that one marries for love, not filial responsibility and ease of manipulation. Pansy dallies with other houses, Draco suspects, for much the same reasons Draco cuts herself. Opportunity, boredom, then habit.

"The instructions describe how to get there and get in. I don’t want you wasting the time the potion gives you fumbling for memories."

Weasley nods, looking it over. "Mandy? Your password's Mandy?"

"Do you have any looser robes?" Weasley looks down, sharply. "Pansy is a different shape."

*************

Someone is following him/her.

Draco feels a thrill at the potential of being caught, the challenge. His/her imitation had been poorer the first trip, but no one had discovered him/her then. A hand touches his/her shoulder, and s/he turns.

"Colin?"

Creevey leans close to whisper, "you're not Ginny."

A sarcastic comment rises up with automation, but s/he smiles in a way that should hurt and raises his/her eyes wide in mock confusion.

"You're Ginny's guy from Slytherin," Creevey continues. Weasley's friend is like a figure from his sepia-tinted photographs, hair that can't decide to be blond or brown. A cautious smile flickers, equally indecisive.

Gryffindors.

But what precisely had Weasley said, s/he wonders.

"The competition, are you?"

It's the 'right' thing to say, apparently, because Colin's smile settles.

"She has six older brothers. I could give you the speech, word for word, but we are just friends." He winks. "I've been running interference for you two since Christmas and she was happy, before whatever happened Monday night. I trust Ginny's judgement. You can't all be bastards like Malfoy."

S/he blinked a few times for the effect. Creevey reached up to pat his/her on the shoulder, then left.

"I really am sorry," he called, going back up the stairs.

S/he waved, and then turned for the portal out. The rumblings of the reverse had started in his/her knees, elbows and stomach. Odd, when it hadn't hurt the first time, but s/he hadn't heard of anyone simmering the potion for days before.

'I trust Ginny's judgement.'

His father was right; how could they possibly not win the war?

*************

"Draco?" She speaks only once he has locked the door.

A small portion of his mind notes that she didn't change, that too long robes have obviously dragged across stone and everyone will know by morning. However, they won't know who, precisely, and Draco knows he'll run circles around them. The rest of his mind just watches her, enjoying Pansy, but not Pansy.

"This is my son's brilliantly executed plan?"

Draco's relationship with his father crystallised the previous summer, in his father's study after meeting a very important guest. Draco remembers recognising that he felt honour, overlying fear, physical revulsion and a touch of smugness. He remembers it all with such clarity, in images, though not the actual emotions.

"I ask for a reason only, Draco. Give me the excuse for your behaviour. Surely, I did not raise a son incapable of realising that one single mark to lord over that Granger girl does not outweigh the passing grade of a Weasley."

Draco had failed his father's tests without knowing, and knowing had formed part of the tests. He cannot be trusted with his own decisions. His erroneous posture towards Snape had been symptomatic of his much larger incompetence. Yes, he is marked, but he'd never rise to higher places.

"I could accept that five years of surrendering so pitifully might tempt you to something so rash. Perhaps the traitor played on your weakness, tempting you?"

Draco hated Granger. It's amazing how many of his errors connect to that single weakness. Weasley's brother is easy to irritate and thus useful for covering that Draco has lost his ability to randomly hate anyone. Potter would have been a colleague in another world, but Granger is a cuckoo and he hated her. He remembers feeling that, as well, hate coiling in his belly while he fantasised about raping her. Such images aroused him before.

What he felt for Granger pales next to his father's animosity for Weasley's father. Lucius holds a seething hatred for Arthur Weasley that Draco himself cannot explain, let alone emulate. Perhaps it rankled that an equally pureblooded wizard condoned Muggles, though his father's politics were much muddier than that.

Draco has always known that there are two types of wizard. One gives orders. The other does not question them. His father is the former, however he phrases himself in the Dark Lord's presence.

However, Draco has only just been made aware that there are also two types of Malfoy.

Weasley's hands leap to her own throat, shucking cloak and wrestling with her nightgown. "I've never, I mean, I..."

Pansy had never looked so frightened, not even the first time. She had lain there like a dead thing, wan like himself, her edges blurring into the bleached blank expanse of the bed sheets. Knowing Pansy, bred to be future mistress of Malfoy Manor, had killed any residual affection Draco felt towards his mother.

Draco reaches for Weasley's hands, stopping them. She stares, but doesn't speak. The height difference is all wrong, but he closes his eyes and kisses her, because he must.

He tastes the undercurrents of the potion, of Pansy, still clinging under the pumpkin juice Weasley must have washed her down with. He remembers what Weasley's potion tasted like, its deep sanguineous redness.

Will she taste like that?

Suddenly, she recoils, the pain of transformation that he's beginning to recognise as a side-effect of reconstitution. Weasley bends at the waist, trying to wrench her hands away and make for the door.

"If I'm here, I mean, more potion takes--"

"I've run out of Boomslang. Do you know how rare it is?"

"Boomslang skins are expensive," Weasley nods, habit kicks in and she begins to paraphrase her textbook.

It's glorious to watch, platinum bleeding copper from the roots out and milk churning to cream. This moment, this possibility, Draco thinks, will be the memory that allows him to conceive his heirs.

"...not to mention that Dark wizards nearly culled them to extinction in the..." Weasley splutters to an embarrassed stop, staring at their entwined hands. They no longer match.

"Stay."

It's not an order, but it might as well be. She doesn't know about Potter's cloak or the floo powder Draco has for the luring of Ashwinders. In the morning, he'll tell her that she can ask his fireplace for her own common room.

His father would not be pleased that Draco so easily accomplished his objective. Not when Draco only realises the substance of his own agenda watching Ginny Weasley, so anxiously hopeful, now perched on the end of his bed.

"I'm a giraffe," she says. "I have to buy boots in the 'Wizards' section."

"What a coincidence. So do I."

"Do you think I'm pretty," Weasley asks, dropping her eyes.

Knowing a quick answer would be doubted, he cocks his head slightly and looks at her.

She is thin, almost sickly, in a way that again makes him doubt she gets enough to eat at home. She is bony, breakable--boyish muscle where Pansy was hips and generous curves.

She is colourful. Her hair is red, not white; eyes brown, not grey. She is freckled and slightly tanned, evidence of a summer out-of-doors. She is flushed, movement and blood.

Everything had become grey, except Weasley who is colour wherever she's touched. He runs his fingers through her hair, her liquid, blood-red hair, hoping for an irrational moment the stain would spread to him.

"I think you're beautiful," he says, and she leans into his touch.

*************

"You know," he begins conversationally, because Pansy would have left by now, "when Potter told me you were pining away--"

"Draco, I'm not--" She apologises, again. "Not?" He knows he is indulgent, but there are different rules for wives and mistresses.

He waits, feeling her fingers in his hair, soft, then gone. He can hear her blood moving at normal speed. He runs his tongue over his teeth, remembering. Her arms move from her sides, across her chest, into her lap.

"I'm not in love with you." She says it fast, so nervous now that she can think. "I like you, I enjoy being around you. I enjoyed this--" and she blushes, all over because her skin is so fair. Fair, not pale, she blushes unevenly in pink blotches.

He likes her like this, flushed with life. He kisses the nearest piece of flesh, an inch below her navel, tasting. She hasn't asked why her pulse accelerated and his did not. Inexperience, perhaps, knowing the vagaries of romance and release but nothing of practical applications. Or she could be too scared to question, though she is pliable under his hands.

"I spent more than six years loving Harry, in one way or another. It hurt even when I thought I was happy. I don't know why I said that," she finishes, looking down for some reassurance he knows his face cannot give. Dead men can watch, but they cannot feel.

"I don't love you, Weasley."

"You're a Malfoy." She sighs, perhaps with relief. The fingers of her right hand lace again through his hair. He supposes it's clean and convenient.

"I like you, Weasley."

Nothing here is a lie because while the need for her has proved asexual, it is still strong. He slides up her body, twisting to keep his left arm pinned beneath and out of sight as he lies out straight to sleep. They fit less perfectly like this, and he irrationally begins to plot for more Boomslang skin.

"I do like you," he says, again, and wonders what it means. Her hair smells of marigolds and aniseed, not copper salt or lemon-fresh.

"Your feet are cold," she whispers.

And she is warm.


End file.
